Yes, COVID-19 Cases Are Up. No, It's Not A Repeat Of Last Year.

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

COVID-19 case numbers are once again rising in the United States ahead of the holiday season, but the country is in a much different place than it was this time last year.

Fifty-nine percent of the country is now fully-vaccinated, and tests are widely available. Mandates, including one that took effect today for federal workers, are expected to spur more people to get vaccinated in the months to come.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and health correspondent Allison Aubrey.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Denise. My friend Becky and I are on a road trip across Idaho, and last night we stayed in a hotel
0:06.4	shape like a potato. You're listening to the MPR Politics podcast, which was recorded at.
0:12.3	Talking, I'm just going to say, for those who know, talking about potatoes during timestamps has
0:16.1	been a treacherous thing for me, but I'm going to do it anyway. No need to say more. It's 210
0:21.2	Eastern on Monday, November 22nd. Things may have changed by the time you hear this,
0:27.1	but we'll still be checking experiences off our bucket lists. Enjoy the show.
0:34.5	When I was a kid and we drove cross country, we got to Idaho and there's this giant sign that said
0:39.1	free taters for out of stators. And we totally went and got free taters because we were out of stators.
0:45.4	Yep. I'm not going to add to that. That sounds great. Hey there, it's the MPR Politics podcast.
0:50.5	I've just got Detro. I come for the White House. And I'm Tamer Keith. I also cover the White House.
0:55.7	And we are talking about COVID today, a whole range of things, which means Allison Aubrey from
1:01.0	NPR's health team is back again. Hey, Allison. Hey, great to be here. I thought this was a serious
1:05.5	podcast. What's all this talk about taters? We're talking about COVID, the rest of the podcast,
1:10.5	so we're just getting the silliness and taters and whatnot out of the way first. Got it.
1:15.0	All right. You ready for that mood transition? Ready. Two, one. Deep breath.
1:19.0	And Allison, I mean, we're joking, but it seems like a moment where things about to turn serious
1:27.4	again before we talk about some of the Biden administration news and other stuff. I just want
1:31.1	to ask you what what you'd say the state of things are right now. We are heading into a holiday weekend
1:36.3	that's going to look a lot more like a normal holiday for most Americans compared to last year.
1:40.0	But at the same time, those those graphs, the roller coaster cart is starting to go back up again.
1:45.0	What's the way you frame things right now? Well, I mean, cases have definitely rebounded. We're
1:49.3	up to about 93,000 cases a day and about 85% of counties in the US have either high or substantial
	...

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